Gwardia Ludowa

Gwardia Ludowa (GL) was the underground armed wing of the communist Polish Workers' Party during World War II. GL was formed on 6 January 1942 as the largest clandestine fighting force on Polish soil that had refused to join the structures of the Polish Underground State loyal to the pro-West, anti-communist London government-in-exile. The GL was created with military aid from the Red Army, which equipped 3,000 GL fighters and sent the Soviet NKVD intelligence services to work with the GL resistance. The GL engaged in partisan warfare, sabotage, and reprisals, and it operated near Piotrkow and Radom; by December 1942, the GL had divided into the administrative units of Warsaw, Lublin, Radom-Kielce, Krakow, Lodz, Silesia, and Lwow. On 1 January 1944, GL merged into the Armia Ludowa.